I love writing. I revere the use of language as an instrument for seeking the truth about life. My books are downloadable and the paperback editions will be appearing soon. Click on the links at the right side of this page. Peruse this blog, it's loaded with music, photography and writing. Hey, sign up for my email list!

Saturday, November 19, 2011

We Don't Know We're Insane

We're
just like the fish; we don't know what water is. But the element in which we swim, the element that is impossible
for us to recognize, is stress.

We have become denizens of a culture that is
actually a Torture Machine. It drives
us insane by presenting demands so complex as to be impossible to achieve.
Every day, it issues thousands of orders. Turn your left blinker. Pay your insurance premium. Pick up your kids' school uniforms. Don't forget the doctor's appointment. Where'd you put the McFarland file? Where are the paper clips? Why is this milk sour? Now I have to return it to the store. Screw it; not worth my time, flush it down
the sink. Are the dogs' vaccinations up
to date? Do I have the receipts for my
tax audit?

Why
am I always left with the feeling that I've forgotten to do a homework
assignment? Who is this screaming at
me, right next to my ear so that it hurts? Our government is
letting people steal on a massive scale.
My bank account is auto- siphoned each month, it's gone and I've got nothing left to spend.

I
think I'm going crazy. I don't have any
sexual desire at all. The last time I
felt truly alive was....when? Have I
ever felt truly alive? I truly don't
think so. There's nothing to look forward
to. My old age will merely be a time
when insurance machines squeeze the remaining dollars from my estate, leaving
my kids with nothing. Zero. The globe is warming up. It's true.
The waters are creeping on shore, slowly.

OUR
SOCIETY IS A TORTURE MACHINE, so complex that it takes a genius to maneuver its
daily routine. It tortures by its
relentless pressure. We don't need
Stalin or Hitler. We have modern life
in Amerika. See that guy with the
cardboard sign sitting at the parking lot exit? "Will work for food."
He isn't a pathetic loser. He's
you or me or someone we know who just cracked under the pressure and opted to
sit in the TIME OUT box in front of everyone.
He couldn't take the complexity any more. Now he's doing better. He has a shoe box where his money piles
up. He's doing better than I am! Could I take sitting in the TIME OUT box in
front of everyone? I don't think
so. I'm not tough enough.

Life
has always been complex, but not like this...Hunting, gathering, fighting off
raiders, that was easy stuff compared to this.
The modern Torture Machine can't be dodged. Your assignment is late!
Punishment will be swift and merciless!
Your interest will rise, your credit will sink.

The
injustice of it! I'm choking on
injustice. I can't breathe! Give me a cigarette. Where are all these voices coming from? Let me turn off the radio.The off switch doesn't
work. The voices are coming from my
pocket. It's my Z-Phone. Its off switch doesn't work either. The argument continues, shouting everywhere,
lies compound in blatant and shameless huckstering. Everything is a trick.
Even the tricks we know to be tricks conceal more subtle tricks. They say those Occupy Wall Street types are going to
burn Manhattan.
Quick, we'd better launch a pre-emptive strike, mow them down before
they find out where we've stashed the money.

The
fish don't recognize the sea. The
people don't recognize the element that dominates our lives. I will coin a term for it:
Phobagonovia.
Phobe-ago-NOVE-ee-yah. It causes
us to curl up inside our homes with the giant TV playing football games and
scripted "reality" shows where people are abused by their
in-laws. Phobagonovia. We are afraid of new experiences. The Torture Machine has implanted this
condition in our nervous systems. We
are afraid of relating to one another openly, of crying in front of strangers,
of expressing feelings easily, of hugging or kissing spontaneously, lest we be
inappropriate, our strait jacket is "Appropriate", we haven't a clue
how to dance in a circle while deeply in love with members of a clan, to sing
ancient songs, to sit around a fire feeling wonderful under the stars. I don't mean we need to go backwards. We need to invent new kinds of communities. We are dying of Phobagonovia. Our neck ties are cutting off our breath. Our high heels are warping our
skeletons. The future is over. Rush Limbaugh will be reborn as a talking
pig that can only sputter nonsense. The people of his remote village will laugh
at him holding their sides with mirth.
They will postpone the time to eat him because he's a tourist attraction. People come from distant villages to see him. They stare in disbelief, listen to his pompous mutterings. They throw him pieces of rubbish. His time
will come, at last.

About Me

A Midwesterner by birth, I migrated to the West Coast just in time to be a hippie but discovered that I related better to the Beatniks. I harkened back to an "old school" world of hard bop, Coltrane, jazz, poetry, painting and photography. A large part of my life went "off the rails" and I experienced the reality of the streets for too long. Putting myself back together was the defining experience of my life so far. It wasn't easy. It did, however, nurture the writer in me. I have written novels, memoirs, poems, humorous fake emails, and commercials

for ridiculous non existent products. I have a passion for astronomy, history, psychology, the pure abstract absurdity of human experience (what the hell is it?). My partner is an honest to god Animal Communicator, as nutty as that may sound to some people. She is the real deal. She also suffers from Fibro and it's a curse with which we must work every day. Come visit my blog and